May 06, 2012

Economists have long-decided that the overall “unemployment rate” can actually be broken down into three sub-categories:

Cyclical Unemployment: Cyclical unemployment the kind of which most of us think when we hear the word “unemployment.” This type of unemployment refers to that which results from the natural cycle of job growth and loss based on the health of the overall economy.

Structural Unemployment: Structural unemployment refers to the job loss that occurs when workers in a given field, or who possess a given set of skills, are not in demand, and/or when a particular career field cannot find suitable workers because they lack appropriate skills or training. For example, a person who specializes in repairing tape recorders will likely find himself out of work due to the technological evolution of digital recorders.

Frictional Unemployment: Frictional unemployment is the kind that results from what is considered the normal, optional behavior of a people in an otherwise viable economy; personal decisions to leave one job for another, decisions to leave one geographical area for another, etc. Frictional unemployment will always be with us, and it is the reason that a 0% unemployment rate will never exist, despite however healthy a given economy might be.

Are these sub-categories really enough, though? Is it possible to justify the addition of others?

How about:

Entitlement Unemployment: Those people who, through a pattern of government-based enablement that has been prosecuted through many decades of propaganda and vote-pandering, have simply decided that it is the job of government to care for them and provide for their needs.

Stupidity Unemployment: Have you met some of the more recent so-called high school graduates running around the countryside these days? There was a time when all who legitimately graduated high school possessed functional, academic skills that allowed them to think and communicate at a level that qualified them to work and achieve at the entry levels of countless numbers of worthwhile jobs and career fields. Now? Not so much…to say the least.

Faux College Unemployment: These are the folks who really had no business attending college in the first place, but bought, literally, into the notion that a degree was a ticket to viable, professional success. Too many of these well-meaning people have burdened themselves with astronomical amounts of debt, pursuing unimpressive degrees at even more unimpressive institutions, and have diplomas in hand that have little in common with the academic integrity and usefulness of those earned by students from past generations.

Geographically Static Unemployment: This category includes those people who see jobs and opportunities leave their present locales, but who mystifyingly decide to stay put, despite their ability to leave, and instead choose to hope and pray for better days. They are unwilling to pack up and go to where the jobs are, and opt to just hang out because they really like their neighborhoods, really like the schools their kids attend, or for any of a variety of other reasons that have nothing to do with basic survival.

Let me be clear: The overriding cause of present-day unemployment in this country remains a punitive corporate tax rate that discourages expansion, as well as a variety of unfortunate policies and outlooks, both corporate and governmental, that encourage the shipment of domestic jobs overseas. That said, it’s a gross exaggeration to proclaim that there are no jobs here, and I’m hearing from more and more business owners that they are unable to fill positions for reasons that have as much to do with the latter four cited here as with the first three noted.

Ultimately, the matter of employment is not quite so easy to stereotype, and complicating factors…including those that are anything but politically correct…will have to be recognized in order for us to look at the totality of our economic quagmire as honestly as possible.

Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press). He is also the Managing Editor of the monthly Bible Prophecy & Survival Report newsletter (www.themarkofthebeast.us).

April 01, 2012

On the eve of this past Friday’s Mega Millions lottery drawing, The Atlantic Wire published an article that supplied readers with all sorts of horror stories about lottery winners whose lives seemed to take noticeable turns for the worst following their good fortune. Whenever a particularly high lottery jackpot is up for grabs, we always see stories like these rolled out that seem to suggest that lottery winners are doomed, and, paranoid extremist that I am, I usually conclude that the motivation for writing them is to further demonize the wealthy. These stories don’t have anything to do with the perceived immorality of playing the lottery or anything like that, but rather, are about the hard luck stories that seem to befall so many lottery winners once the dust has settled and it’s time to live as Daddy Warbucks.

Money is like booze; having a bunch of either dumped on your doorstep does not change who you are, but rather, reveals who you really are. I roll my eyes whenever I hear someone frustratingly describe a friend or loved one who, they claim, “changes into someone completely different” whenever he drinks to excess. News flash: He’s not changing into someone completely different…he’s giving you a good look at who he really is, while the alcohol is keeping his inhibitions and willingness to maintain social conventions at bay.

The same thing applies to money. If you are a prudent, sensible person at pre-windfall, you won’t become a whacked-out, boundless, spendthrift once you’ve received your cash. However, if you have a history of making bad decisions, and find yourself as the one with the right five numbers in a given week, your bad decisions will now become bad decisions on steroids…and God help you and those around you.

I’ve never been drawn to lotteries or gambling, in general. It’s not so much that I take a strident moral position on the practice, although I surely believe that less, not more, gambling, is in the best interests of society at large. Honestly, the whole thing just violates my (mildly) parsimonious inclinations. That said, whether a windfall finds its way to you from the lottery, a settlement, or some other kind of lump-sum payment, I will remain confident that whatever decisions you make afterwards are reflective of who you really are…and nothing else.

Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press). He is also the Managing Editor of the Biblical Prophecy & Survival Report.

January 31, 2012

A recent article in the Yahoo! Financially Fit column called our attention to Heidemarie Schwermer, a 69-year-old grandmother and German citizen who, it’s proclaimed, has lived a happy and healthy existence for the past 16 years without money. She was quoted in the Austrian Times as having become “irritated by the greedy consumer society” she saw all around her, and wanted to drop out and away from all of that. She has a long-held empathy for the homeless community, and while she has written three books about her experiences, she has given away all proceeds to the less fortunate. As for her day-to-day existence, she gets by on trading a variety of services…gardening, cleaning, and even therapy sessions (she is a psychotherapist by trade)…for the goods and services she needs to live.

It is, however, this very exchange of work for goods and services that calls into question the integrity of the notion that she is getting along completely without the use of money.

To say that one is living without money implies that one is also living without the benefit of commerce of any kind. I can say that I’m living “without money” because I am not paid in cash for my work, but if I can somehow exchange that work directly for a house and a car, I am hardly, in spirit, living “without money.”

Also, the article does a poor job of filling in the blanks of how this person is living an apparently-modern lifestyle in a metropolitan area without the benefit of money of any kind. If she had relocated to a remote part of the country and was living entirely off of the land, that would be much closer to the idea of living without money. Clearly, the “sizzle” of this article is meant to be the idea that you can live a non-remote existence in the 21st Century “without money,” but that is not really the case.

The biggest, most overriding issue is that people who claim to live without money often have a pretty direct reliance on those who do. Let’s say I trade my labors for a place to sleep – that place to sleep was built/bought with money at some point in the process. If I avail myself of any place with utilities, the processing of the electricity, gas, whatever…into a usable, end-stage consumer resource was accomplished with money. The list goes on.

There is also, cryptically, a reference to Germany’s “social safety net” in the article, suggesting that if Ms. Schwermer REALLY gets jammed up, she can rely on it. That is not, however, living without money. That is living on everyone else’s money.

Let me be clear about this, lest anyone accuse me of being a heartless ogre – there is plenty of evidence that this woman is more loving, more giving to her fellow man, than a whole lot of the rest of us, and I do not want that fact lost in my screed. Her personal struggles as a refugee during World War II are those of which I cannot even conceive. I doubt not for one moment her sincere love of her fellow man, and how wonderful would it be if more of us had the same sorts of charitable, heartfelt inclinations that clearly guide nearly all of what she does, apparently. Bravo.

All of that said, it is terribly misleading to state or even suggest that her life is not characterized by the facilitation of commerce, or even the outright use of money…even if she doesn’t happy to carry any euros in her pocket.

Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press). He is also the Managing Editor of the Biblical Prophecy & Survival Report.

December 12, 2011

According to a press release issued recently by the office of Martha Coakley, the Attorney General for Massachusetts, Royal Bank of Scotland will pay $52 million to the Commonwealth for its part in bringing the global economic crisis to the doorsteps of homeowners. Specifically, the pursuit of RBS was on the basis that it “financed, purchased, and securitized residential loans that were presumptively unfair.” The release goes on to say that “AG Coakley’s office has been a national leader in holding banks and investment giants accountable for their roles in the economic crisis.”

Just what were the features of these loans that made them “unfair?” Introductory periods and “teaser” rates that Coakley found objectionable, as well as liberal debt-to-income ratios and substantial pre-payment penalties.

Sorry, no sale. Those "teaser" rates, prepayment penalties, and other features Coakley characterizes as "unfair," while gimmicky, for sure, were nevertheless fully disclosed to borrowers who were thinking about little else besides, "more, more, more," despite what the grandstanding regulators want you to believe. As for the aforementioned “roles” of banks like RBS in the economic crisis…just what were they? Making funds available to aggressive borrowers on the basis of asinine Fannie and Freddie underwriting standards?

While the issues are by no means uncomplicated here and there is plenty of blame to go around, as I have said previously and will say again, seeing banks like RBS strong-armed into coughing up millions upon millions while the government's social engineers, who had a very large hand in precipitating this calamity, are allowed to somehow change position in the relative blink of an eye and now reconfigure themselves as advocates for the economic well-being of the citizenry, is a travesty.

Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press). He is also the Managing Editor of the Biblical Prophecy & Survival Report.

September 18, 2011

Years ago, I ended up in embroiled in a hassle with a customer in a separate business venture because of an unfortunate path taken by an email I had written. The condensed version of this is that the company with which I was working as an independent contractor had received a complaint about the way I had spoken to this person, as well as about my general approach to servicing this individual. The background (admittedly, my side here) is that the customer was one of the most extraordinarily difficult with whom I’d ever had the displeasure of working in all of my years as a professional, and I will confess that my demeanor and decorum, while certainly not poor (again, in my own opinion), was not what it normally is.

Anyway, one thing led to another, and my supervisor in all of this asked for an email from me so that he could get my take on the whole matter. Understanding that this was to be a sharing of private thoughts between the two of us, I used the opportunity, in part, to vent, in no uncertain terms, about the difficulties I’d been having with this person.

What do you suppose he did next? He forwarded the email to the customer directly – not intentionally, but carelessly.

What followed was a full-blown firestorm, as you can well imagine. Now, I could blame that supervisor for having done something so stupid as to have, quite mindlessly, forwarded an email without review (yes, he later admitted he didn’t even read it) that he knew full well was intended as a private communication between the two of us. The truth is I’m still a little irritated at him for having done what he did, as inadvertent as it may have been; he had a well-deserved reputation for being a bit too laid-back, so it was perhaps in keeping with his inattention to detail that this happened. HOWEVER, in the light of day, and after all amends had been made and lots of pride had been swallowed, I had to admit that the root cause of all my problems here was that I had chosen to put what I did in an email in the first place. What I should have done, even when he was asking for my thoughts in a forum that was ostensibly between the two of us, was to pretend that the customer would eventually read the email (which obviously happened, anyway).

I had learned my lesson, and learned it the hard way, which is sometimes the best way. In business, you will always come across that occasional customer who is exceedingly difficult – it happens; and there is nothing unnatural about even harboring a few hard feelings toward that person. Doing so is surely not in keeping with “the better angels of our nature,” as termed by Lincoln, but it is a perfectly understandable, human way of being, given the circumstances. However, at no time should those hard feelings ever see the light of day in a business forum of any kind. Nothing constructive ever comes from their expression, while a lot that is destructive can.

The other thing you have to remember is that, in this day and age, your communication may easily come to be viewed by more than just the offended party. The recipient may decide to forward your email to lots of other places, or post it somewhere public, or otherwise use the evolutions of the digital age to bring a lot of attention to just what a horrible person you at least appear, by virtue of that email, to be.

Problems like that on a personal level, while distressing, can pale in comparison to what the offenses can cost your business. As (fairly) smart and as disciplined, and even as usually decorous as I can be…I’m still human, and in the end, being human is something we have to guard against, as much as embrace, in the workplace environment.

Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press).

September 11, 2011

There are a lot of reasons why jobs are presently evaporating in the United States..most evil, some not so much; uncooperative corporate tax rates, a government that works daily to foist a globalist view on Americans, and companies that are all too happy to shore up their bottom lines by moving overseas (moves that are, admittedly, sometimes influenced by aspects of the aforementioned) are but a few of the more insidious reasons for the mass disappearances, while the ongoing technological evolution that allows companies to continually do more with less is an example of reasons that are impactful but not necessarily rooted in ideological agendas.

That said, immediate, personal survival becomes our most pressing consideration when it’s at stake; the grander issues have to be addressed, as well, and sooner rather than later, but if we’re not able to function at the individual level, none of that can be prosecuted.

I largely agree with the idea that a pronouncement, made to all those without jobs currently, to “simply” move to where the jobs are, is unrealistic, but also less than accurate is a generalization that no one can move to where the jobs are, either.

There will always be people who cannot make such a change, for a variety of understandable reasons: poor health, inability to sell a home, and a variety of other factors that serve as weighty anchors to one’s present location. However, we all know full well that are also plenty of other people who do have the wherewithal to make a such a move…and yet the serious consideration to do so never enters their realms of consciousness.

What do we like to say is the definition of insanity? That it is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result? Well, if you live in a given area, have a given background, a given education…and none of those things changes…why would you expect to be any better off in three months, or six months, or even two years, than you are today? As for the risks associated with taking such a step, those have largely been mitigated in the Internet age; the ability to research prospects, communicate with people and firms, and even interview live through web-based technologies, all before even pulling a single suitcase down from the attic, has significantly lessened many of the uncertainties once intrinsically associated with making such a move.

Over and over again, we see families that actually have the ability to move but do not even consider it, because they “have no desire to uproot kids,” they “love their friends and neighbors,” they “can’t imagine leaving,” etc. Noted; however, by no coherent metric do those considerations outweigh the need for absolute survival, do they?

I recently spoke to a headhunter who specializes in the manufacturing management and engineering sectors, and she flat-out said there is a distinct manpower shortage she’s trying to fill in states like Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota. They are not, by any means, what any of us generally think of as the “glamour” states, but just what should the totem pole of priorities look like for a dangerously unemployed person?

Economic relocation is not for everyone, and no sensible person would claim that it is. Beyond that, it is offensive that so many even have to consider that prospect, given the grander-scale reasons why we’re in this mess. That said, relocation is for some people, and in the interest of living today in order to be able to fight tomorrow, it can be an awfully good idea.

Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press).

August 22, 2011

The other day, I tripped over another one of those articles that talks about real-life people who left their button-down, very corporate sorts of jobs to live the dream; that is, to be able to make hobbies and avocations about which they feel particularly passionate more than hobbies and avocations, and actually turn them into primary sources of income. You’ve probably seen articles like that from time to time, and this one is easy on the eyes – lots of pictures, with brief write-ups about each of the principals mentioned. You can find it at the online home of Outside magazine, which I happen to enjoy very much. Here’s the link to it:

These kinds of articles are fun to read, and can even be rather inspiring for some, but the important takeaway that people too often miss is that those who are duplicating the success they had in their previous lines of work are doing so by continuing to bust their tails in their new ones. At a core level, hard work remains hard work, regardless of whether your minute-to-minute or hour-to-hour tasks are more enjoyable than those normally encountered throughout corporate America.

In my circle, I not infrequently come across the person who tried to turn his laid-back hobby into a profession but failed because he was ultimately incapable of divorcing his hobbyist outlook from the reality that what he’s now doing has to be able to pay that pesky mortgage. While reading the article referenced above, there were two things that noticeably stuck out to me from the write-up on Cliff Hodges, the electrical engineer-turned-adventure outfitter: he has 20 employees, and he’s still working 12-hour days.

I sometimes say that those who fell out from the conversion process bought into the myth of trading Sunday for Monday. Yes, you can make a living as an adventure guide, a mountain bike coach, or a surfing instructor; however, prosecuting those interests as businesses on Monday is not the same thing as enjoying them recreationally on Sunday.

What the subjects of the success stories noted in the Outside article “get” that not everyone else does is that there are certain immutable realities of being a viable, performing business that apply whether you’re spending a significant portion of your day behind a desk or on a surfboard. Those that do see it are the ones who end up making it work, and my hat is off to them.

Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press).

July 29, 2011

Are law schools deceiving young, ambitious minds with the false promises of an ample job supply and high salaries? It appears that might just be the case. There is a growing backlash against law schools and what is deemed to be their insistence at deceptive advertising in order to enhance enrollments, and some graduates are even going as far as seeking formal redress against their alma maters. For example, Anna Alaburda is a 2008 graduate of San Diego’s Thomas Jefferson School of Law and passed the California bar exam…a notoriously difficult bar exam, at that…on her first attempt, and yet has been unable to secure any full-time employment since graduation. She is alleging that the law school misrepresented its claims of graduate employment rates by including part-time employment and employment unrelated to the field of law in its rates, without making any distinctions. To add insult to injury, her complaint says that she accrued over $150,000 in student loan debt during her years in law school.

There are numerous and seemingly well-substantiated accusations against law schools’ willingness to misrepresent both prospective salaries and job prospects for graduates in the interest of getting…what else...more students and therefore more student loan money; law school, as with higher education, in general, is very big business. Here you can find a terrific New York Times story, published earlier this year, on just what a minefield a law school education can now be for students: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

On the heels of that particular story comes the disturbing news that 2010 law school graduates, one full year later, are wrestling with terrible debt levels and equally terrible job prospects. Indeed, according to data gathered by the Association for Legal Professionals, barely two-thirds of those graduates…one full year later…are actually in jobs that require the practice of law. As a matter of fact, the overall employment rate of these folks, in any kind of job, is about 87%, which is the lowest it has been since 1996. Making things worse is the enormous debt load these graduates are carrying; roughly 50% of them, by the time they left law school, were saddled with $100,000 or more in student loan obligations.

When I was a kid, the professional “gold standard” that was put before many young students was that of the lawyer and the physician; the intellectually-challenging and highly useful natures of the positions were two of the bases for thinking that way, but so, too, were the promises of secure employment and high compensation. Now, especially for lawyers, those promises have been revealed as myths to all but a relatively few in present-day America.

The law is interesting, even fascinating, and serves as the bedrock of civilized, well-functioning societies. However, there are just too many lawyers now; something that was once little more than a jovial expression of frustration about how the legal process works has now become a literal truth, and is a resonant statement against the idea that the achievement of an expensive law degree is a guarantee to a better life.

Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press).

June 19, 2011

As more Americans seek to venture back into the investing waters, they are doing so with perhaps more hesitancy and caution than in the past. Certainly one of the reasons for this is that the economic collapse taught many that investing in securities markets is not entirely a no-brainer, to say the least. For the previous few decades before trouble struck this last time, things were, for the most part, fairly reliable and productive; now, a person who is growth-oriented in his risk tolerance realizes he cannot simply throw money at any collection of companies out there and expect the kind of almost mindless appreciation that we came to see for so many years.

The other reason for the bit of trepidation is that the economic collapse uncovered a mountain of nefarious dealings on the part of (supposedly) regulated investment professionals throughout the country. We realized that shady con men in the world of investing could be very adept at presenting themselves and their companies in the most sophisticated, sober, and seemingly-trustworthy of lights. It was no longer easy to tell a bad guy from a good guy simply on the basis of a cursory look at who he is or how he worked. Given that, it’s worth a bit of an examination to see what you should be looking for when you think about hiring a financial pro to help with your investing.

Compare current marketplace returns with what your guy is saying you can earn with him. This goes back to that old adage that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. In this case, what we’re talking about is learning to recognize whether a target rate of return proposed by your advisor is in keeping with what seems to be reasonable, based on how similar asset classes are performing throughout the market. For example, if you are a growth investor who knows you will be primarily invested in stock-based vehicles, look to see how key benchmark indexes like the S&P 500 have performed in recent history, and compare that with what your guy is saying. If a representative index is motoring along at an annualized rate of 8%, and your guy is suggesting he can beat that by a few percentage points because he’s going to employ this or that strategy, that is not necessarily a red flag; however, if he’s suggesting that he can double (or more) the return of a comparable benchmark, pay attention. That proclamation, by itself, doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy…it may just mean he’s supremely confident…but it should raise your antennae nevertheless.

Be VERY careful about dealings with advisors who “promise” or “guarantee” returns. It is generally against the law for an advisor to promise or guarantee a return, unless he has in place a hard-and-fast mechanism, vetted by regulatory authorities, to honor such guarantees. The simple reality is that securities markets themselves offer zero assurances of how they will perform in the future, so it is not possible for an advisor to guarantee a rate of return. Beyond that, if you combine this warning with the one mentioned in the previous paragraph, that is a sure sign of trouble; in other words, if you talk to an advisor who not only claims you can earn significantly more than a representative asset class benchmark, but guarantees that high figure…run like the wind.

Always check ‘em out. While conducting a background check on your considered financial professional does not mean that you will come to know everything you should, it’s a good component to include in the evaluation process. Before the Internet age, it was more difficult to learn about historical regulatory issues and other problems a financial advisor might have had, but with the mechanisms available through the online homes of regulatory agencies, you have an easy opportunity to look and see if your guy has had any dust-ups with previous clients or securities authorities. Here are a few places to look:

The good news is that it’s generally not as hard to spot a rat as one might think; even if he’s dressed in a silk suit, carries a briefcase, and maintains a luxurious office in a very public place, there are identifiable behaviors and traits that are common to most that make it easy to pick them out. If you are being quoted curiously high returns, promises of same, and/or note that your prospective advisor has had problems in the past, we would suggest that you resist your inclination to give him the benefit of the doubt…and just move on.

None of the information contained in the above article is intended to be, nor should be construed as, a solicitation or recommendation to buy or sell any security, or engage in any financial transaction whatsoever. It should be noted that, at any given time, the author(s) may or may not own any of the securities or other financial products mentioned in this column. Furthermore, it is strongly suggested that you seek the advice of an appropriate financial professional before making any changes or implementing any decisions with regard to your personal financial profile.

May 25, 2011

There is a saying attributed to Al Davis, the eccentric, long-time owner of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, that sums up his policy regarding the indulgence of individual expression on the part of his players: “Just win, baby.” In other words, as long as his teams are winning, he is not concerned with the color cleats they choose to wear, how long they keep their hair, or anything else that might violate the more button-down policies enforced by other teams.

That sort of represents how I feel about a workplace that flies in the face of convention. I have always believed that if you have a company full of adults…real adults…then those people can handle a work environment that makes concessions on behalf of quality of life, and if anyone in the group cannot seem to manage the greater freedoms and flexibility that come with that, the answer is to rid the company of that person, rather than configuring the workplace into something unfeeling, unbending, and even suffocating.

Glassdoor (www.glassdoor.com) is a free website that offers visitors the ability to get an inside look at jobs, careers, and workplaces. One of the more interesting pieces of information they’ve created is a list, compiled on the basis of votes from the employees themselves, of those companies that are best at balancing work with personal life on behalf of their workers. The results of the 2011 survey can be found here:

Some of the names on Glassdoor’s list aren’t surprising, given that they’re companies that are a manifestation of more recent cultural and technological evolutions, and thus maintain a more “progressive” outlook on life and work: for example, Facebook makes the list, as does MTV. However, a number of companies are those that have been around for a long, long time, and that provide goods and services of a more traditional nature – Chevron, Dupont, and General Mills among them.

In my capacity as a manager, I’ve always chosen to create a benevolently-managed workplace. I see no compelling reason not to do so, and can instantly think of a lot of good reasons to do it. Accommodating the basic family needs of hardworking employees, including the last minute crises that come up from time to time, is something I’ve always considered to be quite reasonable, and making that investment in my people always yielded great dividends in terms of productivity and loyalty. Moreover, there’s no reason why the workplaces themselves cannot be environments from which the employees derive great pleasure and enjoyment during the day.

In the end, I expect adults to be adults. I have always managed people on an assumption made at the outset of the relationship that an earnest adult believes in working hard while he’s getting paid, knows right from wrong, and is replete with common sense. In the rare cases I found myself with an employee who lacked any or all of those basic components, I chose to terminate the employee rather than change the enjoyable culture of our workplace. Believe me…when you offer a workplace that is respectful, fun, and family-friendly…finding good people is in no way a difficult task.

Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press).